


shotgun

by madfatty



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-07-01 06:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15768483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madfatty/pseuds/madfatty
Summary: Last one in gets the chips. Finn's the last one in. Izzy just needs a walk.





	shotgun

**Author's Note:**

> S01E01 Big Wide World. We go back to the beginning. Finn's not too fussed on the new additions to the gang. Izzy has bigger fish to fry.

He’d been the last one in the pool and since Rae had  worked her voodoo once again and got them all  to go along with her unsolicited suggestion - _and wasn’t she just full of those?_ \- Finn was on the chip shop run.

Outside, away from the humidity and the noise and the smell of chlorine, Finn turns his face upward to feel the sun on his not-quite-dry skin, lets the fresh air fill his lungs.  He slides his sunglasses into place and checks his pockets for the hastily scrawled list and the handful of coins he’d collected. Shit, his cigarettes. They must still be in the little room where he got changed. Finn thinks about going back for them but now he’s out of there, he’d rather keep moving. He won’t be gone that long anyway. He’s only made it half way down the driveway before he feels a small cool hand grasping at his forearm.

“Want some company?”

Izzy’s wrestling her short cotton dress down over her still-wet bathers, damp patches already spreading across the front of it and there’s water pooling in the curling ends of her braids. She squints up at him from behind her big pink sunglasses and smiles.

“It’s alright, Iz. You don’t have to come. I was last one in.”

“I want to. Besides, you might get lost, and I could use the walk.”

+++

A lot of preparation had gone into today. Izzy had deliberated long and hard over her outfit and what to do with her hair; she’d shaved all the pertinent places and oiled herself all over until she was as soft and slippery as a baby seal. She’d spent ages in front of the mirror, watching herself smiling and laughing and moving about, checking every angle of her body and making sure nothing would fall out of her costume. By the time she left for the party she was feeling not exactly confident but quietly hopeful.  

Watching Chloe manoeuvre around the room was a revelation and Izzy had watched her long after the boys had stopped. It was her arrogance that fascinated Izzy most.  There was probably a nicer word for it, but right now Izzy couldn’t think of one. Chloe had an awareness of self that went nowhere near self-consciousness. In a display that was as much for Chloe herself as for any audience, she prowled the perimeter of the pool with an absolute certainty that the attention she received was her due and while appreciated, was incidental to requirements. She wore it like a second skin. Izzy cinched her towel tighter around herself and wondered what that must feel like, to know that you were beautiful, to trust it as fact and to expect that everyone else saw you the same way.  

She felt more comfortable once she slipped into the water. All her big thinking stopped as she got caught up rough-housing with Chop and Finn while they waited for Archie and Rae to arrive.   

+++

Back in the pool Chop and Rae are joined together like Siamese twins. There’s nothing tentative about the way he touches Rae, the moment on the slide some kind of chemical catalyst bonding them together easily, organically.  Izzy almost feels like she’s intruding.

She couldn’t help but compare it to the way he’d been with her earlier. Izzy had thrilled at the touch of his hands on her bare skin and trembled at the feel of his muscles shifting against her when she wrapped herself around him as he swum across the pool. The way the water beaded on his broad shoulders, and ran in rivulets from his hairline down his neck lodging in her brain for later, already warming her blood and making her heart beat quicker. He’d been careful with her but deliberate and she’d looked for ways to let him know that she didn’t want careful, but they’d all ended up in the sauna not long after and the moment had passed.

Their rambunctiousness reverberates off the glass, getting louder and louder until it fills the room, and Izzy decides she’d like to be elsewhere for a while.

+++

They head off at a leisurely pace in the direction of the chippy, Izzy chattering about the size of Chloe’s new house and the pool and how quiet Archie’s been today. He hums and nods and offers up the occasional appropriate noise to show he’s listening. She doesn’t really need him for this part; she’s just warming up. Finn’s waiting for her to get to what she really wants to talk about.  

He’s not exactly known for his social skills but the handful of people he’s let in know a completely different Finn to the one most people see. There are times when he feels some situations move too fast for him and he doesn’t trust himself to know the right thing to say. Usually by the time he’s figured it out, things have moved on so he stays in his head a lot. It’s probably why the general population think he’s a grump, the combination of him not saying much and what Archie calls the natural sullen set of his face. Luckily Archie and Izzy and Chop all see past that.

“Finn…” Her voice goes up on the end of his name like a question. She’s ready then. Finn knows exactly what this is going to be about. 

He’s listened to her talk a lot about Chop over the last couple of months. Late nights drunkenly whispering in corners of dark rooms surrounded by the noise of their friends, quiet afternoons, the two of them stretched out on the floor of one or other of their bedrooms and meandering walks home from football games. He’s tried to be supportive without saying too much because he thinks they should figure it out for themselves.

“Iz…” he buzzes her name back at her, pleased with himself that he knows her so well and that she trusts him with her stuff. ~~~~

“What do you think about Rae?” He almost stops mid-stride at that. Rae’s the last person they should talk about. If they talk about Rae they’ll end up rowing and he doesn’t want a row.

“I don’t.”

“Liar. She wouldn’t rattle you so much if you didn’t think _something_.”  She’s got that tone, the one that says there’s no way she’s going to let it drop without getting an answer. If she pushes him now though, she isn’t going to like what he has to say because what he thinks is that they were fine as they were; the four of them.

The idea that Izzy might need female friends had never occurred to Finn until she pointed it out. It’s how they ended up with Chloe. And now Rae, he supposes. He wasn’t happy about it, but it’s not like he could tell Izzy ‘no’ about anything.

What’s worse is everyone else is already a Rae-fan and they’re acting like there’s something wrong with him because he’s not. And it’s not because she full of smart-arsed comments and unasked for opinions, although they don’t help either. There’s no shortage of mouthy girls in Stamford, all convinced they know everything, why would one more bother him? It’s that Rae seems so sure of _him_ , like she’s already made up her mind before he got to decide. He’s starting to feel a little stupid about the way they started out because now every time they meet, there’s the definite whiff of judgement that she’s not shy about sharing, and the fresh sting of embarrassment that goes with it.  None of it stops him from stubbornly standing his increasingly shaky ground in front of Iz. ~~~~

“Leave it out, Iz.” he groans. “I’m not rattled. I’m not.” He insists when she scoffs loudly. He does stop then. “I just don’t get what’s so great about her.” It’s another couple of steps before Izzy notices he’s not beside her so she stops too, turns and heads back to him.

“You mean apart from being wicked smart and a proper laugh and generally an all ‘round really nice person?”

“You don’t think it’s weird that she doesn’t have any other mates?” Finn definitely thought it was weird. If he’d been away from the gang for three months, he’d be desperate to see them.  

“Who said she doesn’t have any mates? Look, Chloe says she’s just got back from France. Maybe she hasn’t caught up with them yet.  Or maybe,” she smiles, “we’re cooler than they are.”

_Chloe says._ Fuck what Chloe says. When did Chloe get a vote anyway?  She’s barely been around for five minutes herself and now she’s dragging in strays of her own. It’s a fucking liberty is what Finn thinks, if Izzy really wants to know.  

He can feel himself getting worked up about it, can feel his face getting all pinched and his mouth moving fast, like he’s chewing hard on the words before he spits them out.

“All I know is, it’s gone from ‘never bloody heard of her,’ to ‘can’t get bloody rid of her,’ overnight. She’s everywhere we go, all the bloody time. She’s like a bad smell. And now we’re stuck with her, all because Chloe says so.” He knows he’s going on about it but he can’t seem to stop himself.

“It’s only been four days, Finn.” She says lightly, reaching up on tiptoe to ruffle his hair. He pulls away, shaking her off, irritated that she’s laughing at him.

“It feels a lot longer.” He mutters.

What it feels like to Finn is that there’s been a shift in gravity and whether they realise it or not, the others are being pulled in towards her, she’s becoming the centre that they orbit, leaving him drifting outside the circle in his self-imposed exile.  He knows he can’t say that though, not even to Izzy, because it’s pathetic and stupid and even she would laugh at him, but that’s what it feels like.

“She’s around because we want her to be, Finn. She’s fun.”

“She’s full-on.”

“Isn’t she though?  It’s what I like most about her.”

He pulls a face. “You don’t think it’s a little too much?”

“God no, just the right amount I reckon.  She’s brilliant and she doesn’t take any shit. From anyone.” Izzy looks at him pointedly. Finn ignores her just as pointedly. “I wish I was more like her.”

“You got a crush or something?” He gripes.

“Maybe.” She laughs. “Maybe I’m not the only one. Chloe and her have been friends for ages and Archie seems dead keen and well, Chop definitely likes her.”

Chop was always where this conversation was heading but what it’s got to do with Rae, Finn has no idea.

They’re skirting the edge of a park and Izzy veers off the footpath and heads for the shade of a nearby tree.  She plonks herself down on the grass beneath it with a huge sigh, fanning her legs with the hem of her skirt. Finn follows her dutifully. Propping himself up on his elbow he stretches out beside her. He should have gone back in for his cigarettes. Something tells him he’s going to need them. Probably a lot of them. He plucks at the grass between them absentmindedly and sprinkles the little bits along the length of her forearm.

“Chop’s just excited to have someone new to play with who’s as rowdy as he is. That’s all.” Finn offers, hoping it will be enough to appease her.

“You didn’t see them in the pool.”

Finn had already left so Izzy’s pretty sure he hadn’t heard the sudden high pitched scream followed by a bark of machine-gun laughter coming from the pool. Nor had he seen Chop twist himself around Rae, plunging them both under the water. Or when they pushed back up through the surface not a minute later like part of some violent water ballet, still wrapped around each other and roaring. Izzy’s eyes had furtively followed the path their hands had taken as they slid over the slickness of the other’s skin.

_I don’t have to._ He thinks _. I’ve seen him with you. He’s not interested in anyone but you Iz. He likes you._

Finn knows this because when he’s not in some corner listening to Izzy talk about Chop, he’s in some other corner listening to Chop talk about her. Usually at the end of the night when things quieten down and Chop has a belly full of beer, he’ll pour his heart out to Finn, only to recant in the morning. Sometimes Finn feels like they’re both taking the piss; that they’ve actually been going out for ages and he’s the only one who doesn’t know because they’re having too much fun messing with him.

It makes more sense to him than the notion that neither of them knows how the other one feels; it’s written on their stupid love-sick faces. It seems to Finn that if you liked a girl as much as Chop says he likes Izzy, there’d be no choice but to tell her. It hasn’t happened yet, but when the time comes, Finn doesn’t think it would be something he could hide and if you like, _liked_ the girl, part of it would have to be built on the fact that there’d been some sort of indication from her that she felt the same.  You wouldn’t let yourself fall that hard for someone if you didn’t already know they fancied you too. Finn wouldn’t. That would be suicide.

There’s a lot he could say to reassure Izzy of Chop’s romantic aspirations where she’s concerned, only he won’t. He really wants to tell her that Chop’s an absolute dickhead for messing her about like this and she deserves better but he won’t say that either. He won’t say any of it because he’s made promises not to, so he stays quiet.

“But it’s not just Chop, is it?” she says when he doesn’t speak. She sits up and shifts around to face him, cross-legged and leaning forward, like she’s been thinking about this for a while. “When has _anyone_ ever asked me out? Or tried to touch me up or snog me at a party unless we were playing one of Chop’s stupid games? And even then, they can’t get away fast enough. Every boy I’ve ever looked at and every boy I ever thought was looking at me took off like a scalded cat just when I thought something might happen.”

“Look,” she says, warming to her subject, “if it were just him that weren’t interested, it’d suck but I’d get over it and move on but, he’s not the problem. The problem is Finn, that _no one_ fancies me. That I am, in fact, unfanciable and I want to know why. No, I _demand_ to know why.”

Anyone who didn’t know her might laugh at her small angry face and her tiny curled fist bouncing off his knee but not Finn; he knows better. Yes, she’s kind and sweet and smart in all the ways he feels he’s not but she’s no pushover and she can be scary when she wants to be. Izzy can pack a lot of aggro into that five foot, one inch frame of hers, make no mistake.

She’s bossy and she thinks she knows what’s best for everyone and he’s hot-headed and stubborn and he doesn’t like being told what to do, and he loves her unconditionally. She helps him balance his temper with his need to keep the peace, just like he knows what to do when she’s feeling murderous because some idiot tries to dismiss her due to her sex or her size. The secret is knowing when to step in.

“Chloe’s always got a line of fellas following her about and I get that because she’s fucking perfect, and Rae.... it’s been less than a week and already Chop can’t keep his hands off her and let’s face it, why would he want to? Jesus, _I_ want to touch her. She looks like she’d be a lot of fun to touch, you know? She’s pretty; she’s funny and her tits… oh my God, her tits are like, the most amazing tits I’ve ever seen. I kinda want to bury my face in them.” She looks at Finn expectantly, waiting for him to agree.

Jesus, does she really expect him to respond to that? This conversation is tough enough without Izzy filling his head with Rae’s amazing tits and what she’d like to do to them.

Just because she’s a pain in the arse doesn’t mean he hasn’t noticed how pretty Rae is. It’s not like his eyes are painted on. He may even have had one or two thoughts of his own regarding how touchable she might be but now, thanks to the visual Izzy’s little confession has conjured, those thoughts just got way more confusing, so it’s probably not in anyone’s best interest for him to say anything about Rae’s appearance. He doesn’t need Izzy getting any ideas about anything or anyone based on his traitorous hormones and he definitely doesn’t want her feeling bad about herself.

“Okay first of all, stop saying ‘tits’. Second, Chloe isn’t ‘perfect’, I don’t know where you get that idea from, ‘cause she’s not. You’re way better looking…”

“No offence, but I need you to look at me from like, a boy’s perspective, not from a Finn perspective.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” It’s too hot for this shit. And it’s way further to the shop than he thought it would be. He should have gone back for his smokes. He should have borrowed Chop’s scooter and come on his own.

“It means you’re my friend and you love me and you don’t want to hurt my feelings. I know you think you’re being a pal telling me what I want to hear, but it doesn’t help me if it’s not true. You see this?” She says, her finger turning in anti-clockwise circles around her face and what he sees is the determination in her eyes.  She’s not looking for pity, she’s looking for answers. “I need you to tell me what I’m doing wrong. What it is I’m missing. You have to help me, Finn. I am never going to lose my virginity at this rate.”

Yep. Definitely should have gone back for his smokes.  What was he supposed to say? That he thinks she’s beautiful and she’s one of the best people he knows and that he loves her with his whole heart but not in that way? Isn’t that exactly what she’s pissed about?

He’d listened to her talk about boys before, and maybe it was selective deafness or maybe he’d blocked it out, but he can’t recall them broaching the subject of sex and Izzy’s not getting any before. There were references to milder displays of affection, holding hands and kissing (no tongues) and the like, vague enough for Finn to cope with, but it was in the abstract, with a sort of ‘someday’ hopefulness, never about anyone specific before Chop. Or so Finn had thought.

What she didn’t seem to realise was there had been plenty of lads that had come sniffing around after her.  Between the three boys there’d been an unspoken understanding that any overly hormonal chancer that got within ten feet of Izzy was detained and dissuaded from their obvious carnal course.  Maybe they should have asked her first. If they’d known it was what she wanted… nah, they’d still have probably chased them all off.  It’s not like he can tell her that now though. Mood she’s in, she’s likely to take his head off.

“You’re talking absolute shit. There is nothing wrong with you and I’m not going to listen to you talk about yourself like this.”

“Well that’s just tough bickies for you, mister because you don’t get a choice. You’re my best mate and them’s the rules. So spill.”  

“Come on, Finn.” She reaches over, taking him by his shirt and shaking him vigorously. “Is it because I’m small? Do guys think of me as a little kid? Like a kid sister? Is it because I’m ginger? Oh God, _is_ it the hair? Or the boobs?” Izzy grabs at her chest with both hands and holds them up for Finn’s inspection. He’s not looking, he’s not looking… he focuses on his fingernails and prays for unconsciousness. “I can’t do anything about my boobs, Finn!” her voice rising with a tinge of panic.

Finn needs a minute to think. And brain bleach. And a blunt force trauma to the head followed by a nice relaxing coma.

“I didn’t say anything about your…” he says haltingly, hoping the ground will open up and swallow him whole before he has to say ‘boobs’.

“So what _are_ you saying?” she’s a dog with a bone and she’s starting to whine like a five year old.

“I’m _trying_ not to say anything.” He whines back.

“Well can you start? Because you not saying anything is really not helping.” She’s relentless, poking and prodding him both physically and verbally until he finally snaps.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Chop thinks _you’re_ pretty. He thinks your tits are…” he splutters to a stop so rapidly he almost chokes on his own spit. He’s not supposed know this. He’d promised not to say anything.

“Would you care to expand on that?  Like, how do you…? What did he say, exactly?”  She asks, eyebrows arching quizzically, inching closer until she’s crowding him.  

God, the look on his face. She’s watched it happen, the ebb and flow of colour draining and returning to his face as she talked about her boobs and her virginity. It’s why she’s spared him until now, poor poppet, he can’t handle it.  He doesn’t want to know about, hear about or think about any of his friends having sex, least of all her but she doesn’t have time to worry about his delicate sensibilities, she’s got big questions and she needs big answers and he’s just let slip he knows something. She should probably do him a favour though, and let go of her boobs before his head explodes.

“No, I really wouldn’t.” he winces, his cheeks burning. He sits up away from her then, putting some distance between them. He wraps his arms around his legs, pulling his knees to his chest. “I promised, Fairy and I’ve already said more than I should have.”

“I know you promised Finn, but it’s me.” Izzy reaches across and squeezes his hand. “If he’s said something to you about me, then as my friend…” she’s trying to sound reasonable but there’s a needling edge to her voice and her eyes are a little wild.  

He can’t help being pissed off that she’s pushing him but he still doesn’t want to fight with her, so he’s careful to keep his own tone even.

“I’m his friend too and I have never once repeated anything you’ve said to me about Chop, not once. It’s not fair of you to ask me that. You’re not being fair.”

“I know but…”

“Well if you know, Iz,” he mutters hotly through clenched teeth, disappointment and frustration getting the better of him, “don’t ask me. Jesus Izzy, you’re doing my head in. I can’t help you with this. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

“Fat lot of good that does me. Who else am I supposed to ask, Finn?” she snaps back at him.

“The girls? This is exactly the kind of stuff that girls talk about, isn’t it? What else would we need Chloe for? Or Rae?”

“Hey!” she barks, slapping him hard on the bicep. “Don’t be an arse. This isn’t about them, it’s about me.”

“Really? Are you sure? Because this wasn’t an issue when it was just the four of us.  You wanted them around Iz, and now they’re making you feel bad about yourself. We should get rid.”

There’s another silence, and he’s not sure which is worse, it or the fighting. They sit in the grass sulking at one another, Izzy rubbing at her stinging hand and Finn rubbing at his stinging arm.

“I’m sorry.” Izzy whispers eventually. She shifts closer to him to lean her head against his shoulder and smooths her fingers over the reddened skin of his arm. “I know you don’t tell tales and I shouldn’t have tried to make you. I don’t know what got into me, he just makes me so… crazy sometimes. I am sorry, Finn.”

“It’s okay. I forgive you.” He pulls up the edge of his t-shirt to tenderly blot her damp eyes and swipe at her runny nose. “I’m sorry too.”

“You’re a good friend Finn, but you’re wrong about the girls.” She sniffles wetly. She takes another moment to even out her breathing before she changes course. “So if we’re not allowed to talk about me, can we at least talk about Rae and why you’re dragging this out?  You should be over it already.”

“Over what?” he asks, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“There’s this thing you do with new people, where you act all rude and unfriendly, trying to scare them off. You know you do that, right?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yeah you do, all the time.” she insists gently, mindful of the truce they’ve just come to.  “And we deal with it because we love you and we know that you’ll come around eventually, but it’s enough now.  You really don’t have to do that with her and you’d see that if you’d stop being so stubborn and took your head out of your arse for five minutes.”

“Steady on, Iz, that’s not fair and it’s not true. Besides,” he looks up at her from under his fringe, his mouth pulling up at one corner into the self-deprecating half-smile that usually gets him out of trouble, “it’s only been four days.”

He can’t believe he’s doing this, especially when Izzy knows all his tricks, but things have turned too prickly between them and he has to find a way to make it stop.  She’s not having any of it though.

“Yeah, well it feels longer.” She counters and he blushes at his own words being used against him. He blushes even more when she rolls her eyes at his pouting. “Don’t drop your lip at me, princess. She’s staying and you’re just going to have to get used to it.”  

“So I don’t get a say because you lot have already made up your minds?” He tries to hold her gaze but he can’t, she stares him down. What he doesn’t see, because he’s studying the ragged edges of his fingernails, is her face soften.

“Pretty much. Look I get it, you feel bad for being a dick to her and you’re embarrassed because she’s not letting you get away with it. But we both know you’re going to end up loving Rae as much as the rest of us do, so stop fucking about and just get there already. It’s time.”

Sometimes he hates that she knows him so well. It feels dangerous to be this open and vulnerable. “Can we go back to talking about your lack-of-sex life please?” he grumbles.

“No we cannot.” She sighs in frustration.  “It’s boring and no one fucking cares. I’m so sick of the sound of my own voice, I could vomit. So, enough now. No more me mooning over Chop and no more you fighting with Rae. I don’t care how you do it but you’re going to fix it, alright?”

He wishes they’d let him come to it in his own time, but Izzy’s too important to him to let it drag on and she knows that; it’s why she always wins. So he’s going to back down and with the realisation comes release, and he surrenders to it, all the air goes out of him in one big body-sized sigh.

“Jesus, alright. Bossy.”

Izzy stands abruptly, patting down the back of her dress. “Right. Come on then.” She says, helping him to his feet. “All this arguing is making me hungry.” She turns him around so she can brush the grass from his back.

“We’re not arguing, we’re… discussing.” They’ve been loud and cross with each other and it’s made him uncomfortable but it’s not until he parrots his father’s too often repeated response that it really hits Finn and he’s eight years old again, standing in the middle of his front room with the sound of his parent’s bedroom door slamming shut echoing through the house, the memory of raised voices knotting his belly. The cage of Izzy’s arms wrapped around him brings him back from far away.  He leans back into her and breathes out slowly. With his thick nicotine-stained fingers carefully circling her delicate bird-boned forearms he bends forward at the waist until he feels her feet lift off the ground. “Oof,” he teases, but the weight of her quiets him. She lets out a small splutter of protest before she allows herself to dangle like a doll, placid and boneless. He smells of sun and sweat and chlorine. They stay that way until his legs begin to shake.

“Put me down you nutter and feed me.” She says against the soft warm cotton of his t-shirt. He obediently places her back on the ground but before he lets her go he gives her one last squeeze. She lets her arms drop, leaving him to hold himself up. As she steps around him, she gives his bum a playful pinch.

“Oi, you. Don’t touch what you can’t afford.” He grouses good-naturedly, batting her hand away.

“I got 50p,” Izzy spins around to face him, her tongue a wicked curl around her top lip.  “And I’m expecting change.”  She winks and takes off running.

They run until they can’t anymore. The day’s too warm and there’s no real rush. They stop long before they reach the high street, sweating and laughing.

 +++

Seems all of Stamford has decided it’s too hot to cook tea tonight, going by the length of the queue at the chip shop. It’s slow moving but neither of them mind, it means they get to stay a little longer in the cool of the air-conditioning. Finn had needed to stop at the tobacconist’s two doors up first and despite the heat Izzy had waited with Finn outside while he smoked two cigarettes, positioning herself within reach of the brief bursts of cold air that escaped with every opening of the shop door.

They stand at the back of the line patiently, both caught up in all the things they’ve said today.

It’s not like he has to ask really, she always has the same thing, but he’s still nervous of the quiet between them, so he inches nearer and murmurs “What you having?”

“Um… the usual, I think.” Her eyes focussed on the chalkboard menu above the fryers. It’s when she starts that Izzy thing she does, her version of standing in the one spot, a subtle, straight legged rocking from side to side, that Finn feels he can let himself relax. With every gentle brush of her arm against his side his shoulders drop, until they’re no longer up around his ears.  

“Yeah, me too. I think.”

Izzy turns her face from the board to lean in and whisper. “What do you think happened to her legs?”

“Who?”

“Rae, you daft bugger.”

“Oh. Dunno.” He mumbles around the thumb he’s chewing on. Izzy tugs his hand away from his mouth, giving it a tiny squeeze before letting it go.

Finn thinks about their afternoon and the way Rae had talked to Chop from the slide. She’d taken an uncomfortable moment and made light of it. Finn didn’t know anyone, guy or girl, who could laugh at themselves like that. He couldn’t help but be a little impressed. And then later in the sauna she’d sat there, either unaware or uncaring of the impact the startling red marks on her legs were having on the rest of them. He could feel the weight of the question hovering, pressing in on them like the steam, and waited nervously for curiosity to get the better of one of them and have it come pouring out like sweat. The anxiety made his knees bounce. But it hadn’t happened and the next thing he knew they were all scrambling for the door and he was hanging back, just a little, just to get his bearings, which is how he ended up here.

She was so comfortable in her skin and she had an easy way with people, well _other_ people at least. He did envy her that. And he can see why Chop might be fascinated by her and even if she was all those things that Izzy said…

“Must have been an accident.” Subtlety isn’t exactly one of Izzy’s strong suits. She’s relentless in her need to know everything about everyone but they’ve just made up so he’s not going to let himself be drawn in.

 “Seems to me Iz, she’s the sort to tell you if she wanted you to know. Anyway, whatever it was, she got through it. She survived.”

“S’pose so. Chloe might know,” She muses to herself. “So, are you going to wind your neck in and behave? For me?”

He pulls away from her far enough to give her a look. “Don’t push it, Isabelle.”

She’s right though. He should sort things out with Rae. Not only to make Izzy happy but to make his life easier as well.  The constant tension of their brief but lively history of snark-filled encounters and push-me-pull-you one-upmanship is exhausting and too much like hard work. The truth is, outside his wounded pride, he can’t see a reason not to, but he’s got no idea where to start and there’s a nagging feeling that the choice of them being friends isn’t his to make now anyway.

“Do you reckon Chloe’ll have brown sauce at hers?”

“Pfft. What do you reckon?” He scoffs, reaching around the people in front of them and pocketing handfuls of little brown sachets of the stuff from a small wicker basket on the counter.

“Ooh, get me some.”

_“_ These are for you, you numpty.”

“You’ve always been my favourite, Finny.”

“I bloody better be. I’m not risking getting barred from here again for anything less.”

He reaches down between them and takes Izzy’s hand in his, softly stroking her fingers.  “I think you’re brilliant.” He whispers into the top of her head.

Izzy considers her best friend, his floppy fringe and his big gooey heart and his deep brown eyes all melty and kind. She smiles at him indulgently and wonders why it is that her white knight isn’t her Prince Charming too? Things would be so much easier.

“That’s because you’re a soft sod and you need to get out more.” She bumps him with her hip.

“I get out plenty.” He bumps her back and pushes her gently towards the counter. “Now, tell the nice man what you want.” They’ve reached the front of the queue and Finn points at the guy tapping insistently on his order pad with his pencil. She beams up at him.

“What I would really like, please, is for us to stay here, eat all the chips and then go to the pub. Just the two of us. Can we do that?” The chip shop guy is strangely unmoved by either her smile or her request and offers no opinion either way other than to huff his impatience at them holding up the queue. Luckily Finn is moved by both.  

“We can do that. Definitely.” Finn nods decisively, something like relief in his tone. “Two cod and chips my good man, and don’t spare the vinegar.”

“And two Cokes, please.” Izzy chirps.

“And two Cokes, please.” Finn hands over the cash and they move towards the last remaining table to wait for their food.

The decision to hide out for the rest of the afternoon peels away all the sharp edges of them and their frames loosen and spread until they fill up the whole table. Finn starts emptying his pockets of the stolen sauce packets. He looks up to find himself under Izzy’s intense scrutiny.

“Wha…?” The noise of it falls flat and dull from his lips.

“Nah, it’s nothing.” She shakes her head and waves him off dismissively.

“Come on, let’s have it.” He can’t tell what she’s thinking. They’ve both said some stuff today that will probably need apologising for. Plus he’s pretty sure he hasn’t completely escaped Izzy’s 12” extended dance mix interrogation regarding his non-response to her Rae Earl doesn’t-she-look-like-she’d-be-fun-to-touch confession. That conversation is going to rear its ugly head at some point. God, he hopes it’s not that. The day has worn him out and he doesn’t have the energy to lie.  

“It’s just… your hair.” She waggles her finger briefly in his direction, her expression still giving nothing away.

“Why, what’s wrong with it?” his fingers already shifting and patting down his fringe.

“Nothing, just normally, you’d have combed it. You must have really been in a hurry, to come out with it looking like that.”

He sits up in his seat, picking up the napkin dispenser from the table to peer at himself before he spins to check his reflection in the shop window.

“Your face…” She sniggers as she drops behind the back of the chair, her hands raised defensively to shield her from the fast and furious rain of brown sauce packets. He looks thoroughly, ridiculously offended. It’s almost worth getting thrown out of the shop for.


End file.
